Totito is born from the desire to create something wonderful and magical, but close — familiar and recognizable. Since I was a child I’ve been amazed by thousands of daily occurrences, which for some beautiful reason I attribute to my mom, my dad, and my sister. I have never stopped being amazed. I can stop a conversation because I see a squirrel running along a wire between trees, or turn off the car music just to enjoy it. To watch a fluffy cloud. These everyday, intimate things — as basic as they are essential to me — seem childish to some, but create connection with others.
Totito is born from a need to communicate, to create, perhaps to connect, and much more than I ever imagined — to project. Developing a children’s design brand in Mexico with a clear horizon ahead is a daily challenge. Entrepreneurship can motivate or discourage, but intention sustains it. So Totito goes, with great ups and downs but with a clear direction. Totito was born in Guadalajara but lives in San Miguel de Allende — I feel the San Miguel countryside is a beautiful home for him: scrublands, cacti, huizaches, and fields of tiny flowers.
Five questions to sketch from the inside out:
- What does San Miguel de Allende bring to Totito Totó?
San Miguel has a charisma and beautiful contradictions — it’s a city but feels like a town, you enjoy the feeling of Mexican countryside but there are few paths to walk it. It’s home to those with roots here for decades and to those who make it their own in days. This gives it a special flavor you feel as you walk through it. The countryside is a “classic Mexican countryside” and that gives it a soft beauty — the kind you feel but no longer even notice. Everyday beauty. That’s where the essence of Totito lives. - Why toys and not something else? What does the toy-object have — its scale, its purpose, its relationship with whoever receives it — that no other format could contain?
The most important quality control for Totito the softoy, more than the design, the fabric, or the dimensions, was hugging it and feeling the hug back. Holding it and feeling warmth in your chest. It sounds like a sweet story, but it was part of a real creative development process. Creating a brand that generates garbage was one of the blocks during the brand’s creation. Creating a brand that resolves and communicates makes sense. We’ve learned over time that children’s stories, dolls and softoys are not just stories and objects — they are ways of understanding the world. Stories tell you about it, and softoys accompany you. Sometimes they are the only ones who do. - What does it mean to you that it is “close”? That word carries a lot. Close to what exactly — to childhood, to the animal, to a way of living, to something almost lost?
Being amazed by everyday life is a valuable act that seems so basic it gets lost — but it can offer so much. It can fill you from within with the simple act of observing. That’s where something called connection happens, and it is undoubtedly nourishing and in some way revealing. - What do you owe to donkeys? Not metaphorically. Or yes, but starting from the literal: what have they taught you, what have they given back, what do you understand about the world from having watched them slowly?
Dignity. We stole the free and wild nature of donkeys and turned them into cargo equipment. We owe them respect and the commitment to do what is necessary for their wellbeing. The donkey is seen in contradictions too — a beast of burden, a working animal, and at the same time a beautiful representative of Mexican soil. We illustrate them, photograph them, they appear in textbooks, in photographs by great photographers, in milagritos and sculptures — yet they have never had the attention of being seen as sentient beings. - What does someone need to understand about donkeys to understand Totito?
Sometimes everyday life doesn’t let you see what is magnificent. Comparison doesn’t let you recognize the beauty of what is authentic. Utility strips away the essence of beings.
Leave a Reply